Early Years Recovery Programme

NOTE: Please find update regarding this programme and associate strands attached.

The purpose of this notice is to notify the market of forthcoming procurement activity relating to the Early Years Recovery Programme.

The Government announced up to £153 million of new funding for training for early years staff to support the very youngest children's learning and development as part of education recovery from the pandemic.

Our investment in Early Years Education Recovery will build a stronger, more expert workforce, enabling settings to deliver high quality teaching and address the impact of the pandemic on the youngest children with a focus on the most disadvantaged areas. It will do this by:

• Delivering a universal training offer together with targeted support to both leaders and practitioners to create a more sustainable, self-supporting system;
• Strengthening specialist expertise and leadership in the sector by boosting practitioners' skills to develop children's early language and maths, as well as their personal and social development.
• Improve the capacity of the early years workforce to support children with special educational needs; and
• Training EY practitioners to support parents with home learning, which is one of the biggest drivers of early outcomes and also influences future attainment.

We will be running procurements in the following strands of work to support Early Years Education Recovery.

1. Early years online child development training: A new, universal online child development training offer to upskill practitioners and improve knowledge of child development so they will be better able to support children in their care, particularly those whose development may have been impeded due to the covid pandemic.

2. Pedagogical and whole setting leadership support (experts and mentors): Access to support from sector experts and mentors for those settings in need of most support to help strengthen children's learning and development.

3. Early Years Innovation Programme: Promoting innovation by providing opportunities for settings to explore innovative practice, help grow the evidence base and facilitate cross-sector sharing.

4. Phase 3 of the Professional Development Programme rollout (PDP3): Building on PDP1 and PDP2.

5. Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) training: Invest in specialist SEND expertise by increasing the number of staff with an accredited Level 3 EY SENCO qualification, leading to better identification of SEND and better support for those children.

6. Level 3 qualifications review: Provide a reformed, evidence-based Level 3 qualification.

7. Training EY practitioners to support parents with home learning (HLE): Train EY practitioners to support parents with home learning with priority given to the most disadvantaged families.

Additional information:

Please note: this notice is for expressions of interest from organisations interested in delivering projects relating to the Department's Early Years Recovery Programme.

From November 2021 DfE will be hosting a number of market engagement events in connection with the Early Years Recovery Programme. Notifications of the market engagement events will be issued by strands of work.

Initially, the following strands, number 1 (online training) and number 2 (Experts and Mentors) will be tendered through the Education and Children's Social Care Dynamic Purchasing System (ECSC DPS), you can join this via the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/procurement#educational-and-childrens-social-care-professionals-dynamic-purchasing-system-ecsc-dps

This notice is for information only and is intended to be indicative. Therefore, all information presented here is subject to change. Accordingly, DfE will not be liable for any cost, expenditure, work or effort incurred by any party acting on the basis of this PIN.

All future information will be issued to potential providers via the DfE eTendering Portal. Providers can access this system at: https://education.app.jaggaer.com for details of how to register and the terms of free registration.